Grandmother creates emojis especially for older people to reflect life for the over-50s

Grandmother creates emojis especially for older people to reflect life for the over-50s

A picture paints a thousand words…

BBC News reports that while many millennials wouldn’t dream of firing off a text without incorporating a cluster of emojis to illustrate their thoughts, plenty of older people approach the ubiquitous icons with a mixture of apprehension and bemusement. Grandmother Diane Hill was so frustrated that the digital images on offer did not represent her life, she decided to compile her own set of emojis -“emoldjis” – to cater for a more mature audience.

Why don’t the standard emoji offerings do it for her? The preserve of the younger generations, grinning cats, aubergines and lipstick kisses did not appeal to Ms Hill, who developed her emoldjis with the over-50s in mind. “I need something that shows pain because my back hurts, my knees hurt and I need emojis with glasses,” she told the BBC.

What kind of emojis did she create? Ms Hill’s ideas include an icons highlighting the stress of misplacing one’s false teeth, the joy of spending one’s children’s inheritance money, and simply an older person giving a disapproving look.

Did she draw them herself? So serious was Ms Hill about the project, she enlisted the help of a professional artist, Chris Oxenbury, to design her ideas. The emoldji creator described the artist’s work as “fantastic” and said she particularly liked the “I love the “spending the kids’ inheritance one.” Ms Hill added: “I could send any of these emojis to my friends and they’d know what I mean.”

When will they be available to use? Ms Hill has submitted the designs to the Unicode Consortium, the body that regulates emojis. If the designs are approved older smartphone users could soon be peppering their text messages with bingo emoldji and giving their smiley-face loving grandchildren a run for their money.